The Vocab You Should Know
“Hardening of the heart ages people faster than hardening of the arteries.” - Unknown
I thought that this is a good time to remind you of the vocab words you should know by now (because we should use the words you’re studying so you can know more how to use them). Chances are, you’re already on it and are studying all the right things. For this lesson, I want to focus on “things,” specifically “things” that you can form an opinion around. We’ll use these “things” to practice “to like” and to learn “to hate” (plus some other related things). All these “things” are things you should be studying via your Anki decks, anyways, so I imagine you’ll know a good number of these (or, at least, you’ve seen them).
List Of Things We (May) Use In This Chapter
These “things” are hand picked because they need to be things that you can form an opinion around (i.e. do you like them? Hate them? Something in between?). We won’t necessarily use all of them this chapter, but you should still know and learn them all because they’ll definitely be useful at some point (review review review!). Go through this list and write down anything you don’t know, because it probably needs more practice. Also, check Anki to see if there’s anything it wants you to review. Chances are (as long as you’ve been following along with your lists), the things you need to review are going to correlate pretty nicely with the things you don’t really know well below.
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| アメリカ人 | American |
| フランス人 | French Person |
| 大人 | Adult |
| 女 | Woman |
| こいぬ | Puppy |
| 山 | Mountain |
| 川 | River |
| ともだち | Friend |
| みず | Water |
| でんしゃ | Train |
| せんせい | Teacher |
| ねこ | Cat |
| いぬ | Dog |
| じてんしゃ | Bicycle |
| くるま | Car |
| りんご | Apple |
| しんぶん | Newspaper |
| こうえん | Park |
| じしょ | Dictionary |
| ちかてつ | Subway |
| おてあらい | Bathroom (formal) |
| しお | Salt |
| さとう | Sugar |
| しゃしん | Picture |
| こども | Child |
| あめ | Rain |
| ゆき | Snow |
| なつ | Summer |
| ふゆ | Winter |
| あき | Fall / Autumn |
| はる | Spring |
| しごと | Work / Job |
| くすり | Medicine |
| びょういん | Hospital |
| くうこう | Airport |
| ひこうき | Airplane |
| とり | Bird |
| さかな | Fish |
| にく | Meat |
| やさい | Vegetable |
| がくせい | Student |
| かぞく | Family |
| いしゃ | Doctor |
| あさごはん | Breakfast |
| にほん | Japan |
| でんわ | Telephone |
| めがね | Glasses |
| えんぴつ | Pencil |
| たべもの | Food |
You don’t have to know all of these, but make sure you have a pretty good handle on much of this list. Vocab is important when learning a new language, after all, and unfortunately the only way to learn vocab is to put the time in. Study hard, study consistently, and be excited about every new word you learn – it’s getting you one step closer towards being able to speak Japanese, after all!